Wyndham's big crime dip

Data from the state’s Crime Statistics Agency showed 14,021 crimes were reported in Wyndham up to September 2017, a 10.9 per cent drop from the 15,745 offences for the same time in 2016.

Arson dropped from 147 to 91 offences, burglaries and break-and-enters were down from 1970 to 1511, theft reduced from 6132 to 4630 and property damage dropped from 1197 to 1101.

Drug dealing and trafficking cases dipped from 92 cases to 81, but drug use and possession rose from 505 cases to 511 and drug cultivating and manufacturing cases rose from 49 to 60.

Other crimes in Wyndham that increased in were assault and related offences (1151 to 1235), weapons and explosives offences (369 to 396), sexual offences (241 to 298) and robberies (126 to 153).

On a suburb-by-suburb basis, Werribee recorded the most crimes with 4016 offences (4773 in 2016), followed by Hoppers Crossing with 3103 offences (3276), Point Cook on 1867 offences (2034), Tarneit at 1663 (1681) and Wyndham Vale with 1077 offences (1600).

In comparison, there were 902 crimes reported in Truganina (1029 last year), 344 in Williams Landing (442 last year), 162 in Werribee South (210 last year) and 53 in Mount Cottrell (66 last year).

The only two areas that recorded crime rises were Laverton North with 738 offences this year compared to 588 in 2016, and Little River with 217 offences (177 last year).

Wyndham’s police Inspector Marty Allison said crime statistics could sometimes be unpredictable, with no discernible patterns.

“While the decrease in overall crime (in Wyndham) is promising and indicates that our methods of detecting and dealing with recidivist property offenders are effective, what this tells us about is that we still have to do some work around people-related crime,” Inspector Allison said.

“We need to identify areas where people-related crime is occurring and we want to have a visible police presence in these areas to dissuade and prevent these offence from happening.”